


Temporis

by tothineownelfbetrue



Category: Disenchantment (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Guilt, Implied Luci/Elfo, Loss, M/M, Mentioned Elfo/Bean (per canon), Not Beta Read, Swearing, lots of swearing, stages of grief, timey-wimey nonsense, useless bookend quotes, what is linear time anyway?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 05:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16469621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothineownelfbetrue/pseuds/tothineownelfbetrue
Summary: It's a truism that time heals all wounds.  Luci's never believed in doing anything the normal way though.Or: That weird fic about linear time and the stages of grief.





	Temporis

 

-

  
_Lots of people wait around "for the right time". People don't know that there is no such thing as a right time. Time is never right nor wrong. The only negative factor of time is that you can lose it and the only positive factor of time is that you can seize it._  
― C. JoyBell C.

 

-

"Do you ever think-" Bean's words were slurred but Luci could still understand them. "D'you ever think that we're not really here, y'know? Like, here in this bar right now." And Luci almost laughed. Almost.

"You're drunk Bean, and that's kinda fucking awesome." He leaned forward in his seat, too far forward because he was also pretty damn drunk. His snout hit the table and somewhere in his tipsy haze it registered as funny, despite the pain. He snorted, straightening up and grinning into his drink. "So, where are we, Bean?"

It was going to be a good answer, it had to be. Bean was generally hilarious when she hit this level of drunk. It was two beers after 'singing bawdy tavern songs' drunk and still seven drinks until 'puking her guts out' drunk. It was the perfect level of drunk. Luci would have nudged Elfo, to rub his handiwork in the elf's face, but at some point Elfo had passed out and rolled onto the floor under the table. That was too far for Luci to go for a bit of gloating, especially when he was preoccupied with drinking and laughing.

Bean's expression was weird. Not her usual weird when she was plastered. It was something else. She had a wide haunted look in her eyes that Luci had never seen outside of the chapel on her wedding day, sharing communion wine. It was the look of someone who'd flown past the drunken stupor and straight to introspection. "What if we were **everywhere**?"

The demon wasn't sure whether to laugh or not, he was spared having to decide as Bean continued.

"I mean, how do we know we even exist? Like, are we even here? Right now? What if we're not? I mean... not right now. What if time doesn't even exist?" She fell back into her chair, mug lolling in her fingers and drenching the floor as Bean stared at the ceiling, her expression blank.

For just a moment, for some bizarre alcohol-fueled reason, Luci wanted her to keep talking. He needed to hear whatever prattling thing she was trying to say.

For just a moment, it felt important. Vital, even.

/What if time doesn't exist?/

What a notion. What a notion indeed.

-

Luci barely remembered anything the next day, even when Bean was lamenting over forgetting something profound. Luci was having too much fun watching Elfo navigate through his hangover. The elf was stumbling and squinting, leaving Luci thoroughly unimpressed.

"You're seriously that hung over? Man, you barely had anything to drink last night! Pfff! Lightweight."

Elfo looked at him sidelong, bleary but not missing the insult directed at him. "I'm afraid I'm too busy to be insulted right now," his voice was soft, uncertain. Polite but still infuriatingly dismissive, for all that. "I'm going to go find a bucket now..."

As he wobbled off, Luci felt a sharp sensation beneath his rib cage, his clawed fingers flexing at the air as he tried to fight down the surge of tight rage in his gut. He wasn't even sure why he was angry.

"Hey!" He bristled, tail held stiff and high behind him. "Don't walk away while I'm talking to you!" Elfo paused and Luci was never sure afterward -

/or maybe he was, maybe he would be/

\- if Elfo's expression when he looked over his shoulder at Luci was sad or just sickly from the hangover. Neither would have been out of place. Luci was certain he hadn't said anything, at least. Pretty sure.

All he could do was stand there, fuming for reasons he couldn't understand and didn't want to think about. Hours later, long after dark, he still paced the halls. A black cursing shadow that had the castle employees fleeing his approach with superstitious terror.

Elfo was curled up asleep at the foot of the bed when Luci went up to Bean's room. Luci stared at his soft green face and his gut twisted again. As he climbed up on the bed, Luci skirted around the elf and went to lie on Bean's pillow. He didn't really need sleep, being an immortal creature, but an hour later while lying awake on Bean's pillow, he cursed sleep for not coming.

-

He was in the chapel and it was dark. For a moment he couldn't remember how he'd gotten there or why he'd come. Then he looked over at the cold still green form only partially illuminated by the moonlight filtering in through the broken window and time caught up with him.

Oh. Yes.

Luci wasn't sure how he'd lost track for a moment. He'd been thinking of something else and whatever it was, it was gone now.

Bean was gone too. She and her ex-statue mother had hugged a bunch and then left Luci high and dry. Bean hadn't even tried to ask if he wanted to come.

He hadn't, but that was beside the point.

The demon shuffled forward, his tail still dragging on the ground behind him. Despite his efforts to keep it raised and off the floor, it had a mind of its own and refused to be budged. Stupid lazy tail. He reached out a hand, his fingers brushing against Elfo's arm. It was just a flicker of a touch.

That tight feeling was still there in his stomach, like his guts were tangled into a big knotted mess. He hated it. Fucking hated it. What use was it to feel stupid sad feelings? Demons didn't even get sad!

When it came right down to it, demons weren't supposed to feel a lot of ways, really. Frustration bubbled up in him because who was stupid little elf to make him feel a thing he didn't want to? He drew back, now angry instead, letting the anger wash over him and drive away other, lesser emotions. Anger was good. It was something he could understand.

"It's your fault we're here," he said to the unhearing, unmoving form of his not-friend. "You and your stupid crush on Bean and your stupid goody two-shoes act and your stupid candy! Hi, I'm Elfo." He mocked the normally cheery greeting with a twist of disgust to his lips. "Well we didn't need you here, you know. Bean and I were doing great before you showed up! You should have stayed hidden away in your boring little elf village where it was all dull and safe! You wanted to see the outside world and look where it got you!" He was shaking, he was just that mad. His eyes burned.

Stupid Elfo and his stupid pointy ears and his stupid magic blood and his stupid dreams...

Wanting something better out of life was the most stupid thing out of them all. You never got anything good in life for free. Demons knew it better than most, that things had a cost and sooner or later you had to pay it. No one was exempt.

And just like that, his anger came crashing down around his pointy ears. He did know that. He'd always known it, and it was why he had drinking buddies instead of family. Drinking buddies, instead of friends.

And he'd known - hadn't he? - that mortals weren't friends anyway. Being friends with a mortal had that cost built in from the start. Mortals died.

It was too much to want. Somewhere along the way he'd screwed up, perhaps as far back as Bean's sad little confessional right before her wedding. Feelings of kinship and belonging... they weren't for creatures like him.

He was mad at Elfo for leaving, but maybe it was his own fault for wanting too much. Maybe Bean would leave next and it would all be some kind of demonic hubris. A comedy of divine proportions with Luci as the Fool.

Luci couldn't continue that thought. It was too close to self pity. Anger was easier and it hurt less.

And fuck, he just needed a drink, just needed something-

-

"I'm so excited, my skin is breaking out in sprinkles!" Elfo chirped out, incessantly cheery despite his frantic scratching at his own bare arms.

Luci had a moment of something like dizziness. Mental dizziness, maybe. Everything felt blindingly familiar for a few seconds. Had they been here before? Had he?

His own voice came out and the words were familiar too, but he couldn't recall stringing them together in his head. They were just there. "Those are mosquito bites."

"I'm scratching with excitement!"

There was more conversation after that, Zog was saying something, but Luci barely noticed it. He was far more preoccupied trying to figure out what was going on. He'd been somewhere else, hadn't he?

For just a moment, at least.

There was something he was so close to being able to grasp, some mystery he was on the verge of unraveling...

Then they were arriving at Dankmire and unboarding from the ship and it all slipped away in the confusion, like the lingering fragment of a dream.

-

He was angry whenever he looked at Elfo. He couldn't understand why. It wasn't his business to understand. Whatever the reason was, he was unable to resist goading the elf at every step. He'd always been able to push Elfo's buttons when he set his wicked little mind to it, and he was pushing them hard now. Repeatedly. Ruthlessly.

Luci could hardly blame the elf for finally snapping.

At the same time, rolling in the shallow, foul-smelling swamp muck and landing whatever blows he could manage against Elfo's soft squishy body, he didn't feel any better. There was something desperate inside him and having the elf as a punching bag was making it worse instead of better.

But he couldn't stop himself. He didn't know if he even wanted to stop.

It took Bean dragging them apart to break him out of his unreasoning fury. Smacking Elfo in the face with his tail at the end was just a leftover moment of pettiness.

-

"Ow!" Elfo rubbed at his arm, squeaking with pain and toothless outrage. "What was that for?! You're mean!"

"Something is fucking weird right now!" Luci snapped back. "Like really fucking weird. And none of it makes sense! And you were just hitting me with my own tail so screw you!"

"I was not!" Elfo yelped out in protest, then paused to look at Luci with a surprisingly piercing gaze. The demon bristled at that, just out of habit. Like he'd even see anything? Elfo wouldn't be able to figure him out. Hell, he couldn't even figure himself out right now. "Luci? Are - Are you high?"

"No!" But wait... oh shit, was he? What was he doing? He'd been somewhere else a moment ago, hadn't he? "Maybe."

And then Elfo was fussing over him and he still had no idea what was going on. Luci normally wouldn't have stood still - or laid still, rather - while being tucked in by a fussy nanny elf, but he didn't try to fight it this time. Elfo was petting his ears and he leaned into it because damn if he wasn't a sucker for attention. Maybe he was high. High and this whole thing-

/this time not existing thing/

-maybe it was just the snake root or the weed or something.

"Keep doing that," he said when Elfo's hand began to pull away. "Keep petting me. Don't leave." He wasn't sure if he said that last part out loud, but he was tired and starting to drift and Elfo was there and solid. And he stayed.

For a moment.

-

"Stay with me." Bean's voice was soft and desperate. Zog's men were looking on and Luci wanted to yell at them, or create a flaming shadow to make them run. There was something trying to claw its way out from under his skin and it was too much to keep inside him. Bean was shaking beside him, calling out in a tired, helpless, hopeless plea. "Elfo, stay with me."

You're all I've got.

And the soldiers didn't deserve to be here. Never mind that only one of them had shot that damned arrow, they'd still all come here for this. They were all guilty.

Luci wanted to yell it into their faces, this condemnation, because who knew guilt and sin better than a demon, but the choked sound from Bean and the limp sprawl of Elfo's dangling hand tore him away from his anger and it burned out before he could use it. It was all just ashes now, that sat bitter and dusty in his mouth.

Who did that? Useless question. He would never know.

And then there was fire, but it was behind his eyes and burning away into steam on his cheeks and it left him empty and cold.

-

"What if time doesn't even exist?" Bean was saying and the transition from where he'd been was jarring. "like what if we could just... like... fall out of it?"

Luci felt every inch of his small body spring to attention at Bean's random, drunken slurring. Seconds later she was on about something else and Luci frankly didn't give a shit.

Time. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but it had something to do with time. Or the lack of time? The absence of time?

What if he could just fall out of it?

There was something, something he couldn't quite remember. Maybe it hadn't happened yet. Something bad.

But what?

"If you knew the future, could you change it?" Luci asked to no one. To everyone. It was a question for the universe.

Bean was the only one to hear it and she gave a long puzzled pause, blinking at him bleary and unsteady. "What?" And then "Wow. That's. That's a good question. That's really profound, man." She hiccuped. "Could you? Do that? I mean could you?" She slurred a few more words before she finally went out like a light, face down on the table.

"Could you?" Luci repeated, so softly even he could barely hear it. But whatever the something was, the something, the future... whatever it was, he couldn't remember it.

-

Why he was trying to push them together he would never know. Why should he care if Elfo had a stupid hopeless crush on Bean? If anything, he needed to gloat and laugh even more about how ludicrous the idea of Bean liking a ridiculous little elf was. Instead he was hopping up on the table, unbidden, and smacking a cheese cube out of Elfo's hand.

"You're missing your chance, stupid!" Elfo looked at him for a moment, his eyes huge and wet like he was either afraid or about to cry. Maybe both. That weird knot had taken up permanent residence in Luci's gut and wasn't loosening up at all, even as Elfo finally got his shit together and hopped down to try and talk to Bean.

Elfo would be safe with Bean.

Wait... where had that thought come from?

-

"Elfo!" Bean lunged through the crowd so quickly that Luci struggled to keep his grip on her shoulder. The world flip-flopped around him, dizzyingly fast, and the concept of linear time was choosing that moment to do a jig on his brain, leaving him even more disoriented. His claws tore free of the blue fabric on Bean's shirt and he went flying into the crowd.

Luci hit the ground hard on his back, the air knocked out of him for a few seconds before he remembered that he didn't actually need air like mortals did. He rolled over, moving to follow Bean. At first he ran on two legs, then when it was too slow, he switched to four for the added speed, but even so, by the time he caught up with Bean, the elfnapper was already gone, just some wagon prints and a trail of dust in his wake.

He was tired and sore and frustrated beyond belief. The slight wry disgust in his voice was real, "I knew you should have kept him on a leash." He wasn't sure if he was more upset at her or at himself.

-

"You should keep him on a leash." Luci hopped onto Bean's shoulder, both of them watching as Elfo attempted to eat a biscuit from the breakfast table and immediately had to run screaming from Prince Derek's pet swan who was apparently also fond of biscuits.

"I tried that already," Bean sighed. "Remember? He got all tangled up with that milk wagon."

"Oh yeah!" Luci laughed fondly at the memory of Elfo dangling from the slowly tilting wagon wheel, suspended by the leash and collar while milk leaked out of the side of the wagon and down the back of Elfo's shirt. "Good times!"

He almost suggested she try it again anyway. It was on the tip of his tongue, but then he couldn't remember why it seemed important. Also at the same moment, Elfo came flying past them covered in jelly and swan feathers and screaming as Derek's swan followed in hot pursuit. It was just too damn funny. What was the thing he was supposed to remember again?

-

"Why am I even here?!" Luci raged. His small feet stomped against the stone steps of the chapel as he vented to the cold uncaring walls and Elfo's lifeless body. " **Why**?"

"Why are any of us here?" The demon jumped and cursed, flailing until he landed on his ass on the cold floor. The voice hadn't actually come from nowhere. A quick looked showed him that it was that one weird priestess lady who had been officiating Bean's interrupted wedding. She was skulking around all in black. "How can any of us know the will of the divine being, if he she or it truly exists? Such knowledge is not for mere mortals to know... unless of course the divine being feels that it is, in his, her or its infinite wisdom."

"For fuck's sake, cram it already!" Luci snapped, "What are you doing here at this hour anyway? Don't you mortals need to sleep or something?"

The woman drew herself up straight, looking down at the demon through lidded eyes. "The question is, what are you doing here?"

Luci clenched his fists, braced for a scathing retort, maybe even something directly calling out his dead friend and what business was it of hers anyway. For some reason, the anger he was trying to summon bled out of him as quickly as he could muster it.

What was he doing here? Bean had already left, and as much as he wouldn't have said so to either of them, she was technically closer to Elfo than he was. How was she moving on already? He was unreasonably angry over that but it was a small hurt kind of anger, like a wound he kept in close to himself.

Why was he here?

"I can't leave." He said finally. Just that.

"Why not?" The woman cut through his bullshit self-pity mercilessly. He would almost have admired her ruthlessness if she'd done it to someone else.

"I should have stopped it." The knot inside pulled tighter with every word. It wasn't guilt. Never that. "I could have changed it."

"Liar!" She screeched out the word and Luci flinched.

"I should have said something." He said at last, hesitantly. He walked around naked as his default, but he'd never felt so laid bare in his life. As soon as the words passed his lips he knew they were true. An incomplete truth, to be sure, but a truth.

"Say it now, then." The priestess said, and her voice was quiet, full of solemnity and omen. "Is it not better to say it now than not at all?" Luci swallowed, shook his head and crept in closer to Elfo's still form. Half curled, he was a dark blotch of shadow against the unforgiving granite.

"I can't." The words echoed in his ears.

-

"What's wrong?" Elfo was looking a little more green than usual as the crates and sacks moved gently across the floor of the cargo ship with every shift in the current. Bean was sprawled on a pile of straw in the corner, asleep or close to it. "Do you want me to untie your tail?"

"It's fine!" Luci grumbled, his voice echoing in the glass bottle around him. He was silent a few seconds, staring off into nothingness. "Aren't you mad?" He asked, finally.

Elfo stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "Mad? Why would I be mad?"

Luci grimaced, feeling the heavy weight of the bottle, every swing of it tugging at his tail with the motion of the waves outside. "That we didn't save you. That we failed! You've gotta be mad about that, right?"

The elf sat there for a moment and Luci swore he could see the slight quiver of his lip even from where he was hanging. His eyes were big and bright, even in the dimness of the hold. "How could I be mad?" Elfo fidgeted, tugging at the collar of his shirt, his gaze was somewhere at the level of the floor, never rising to meet Luci's gaze. "You guys came for me. no one ever did anything like that for me before."

We'd do it again. Luci didn't say it, but the words were still there. We'd fuckin do it, no matter how useless it is to try. No matter what it took.

/Wherever you are, we'll come find you./

-

The elf was stealthier than he expected. Stronger too. He was also more than a little hysterical as he pounded his small green fists against Luci's snout. "Tell Me Who You Are Hi I'm Elfo!" The screaming stopped but the punching continued, even as the elf realized who he was sitting on.

"You realize you're still hitting me, right?" Luci growled. He was only tolerating this nonsense because the elf had just been through all this shit, but there was only so much he was willing to take before vengeance was an option.

"Yes," Elfo admitted, small and wry. "But I'm afraid of what you'll do when I stop."

It seemed like just a month or two ago, he would have returned the elf's pummeling with some interest attached, but for some reason he just couldn't. He curled his tail to hook the pointed tip of it in the collar of Elfo's shirt and lifted him into Bean's waiting arms.

There was something weirdly pure about the two of them hugging and it ate through all the corruption he was supposed to be here to bring. He watched with a mix of jealousy and wistfulness that he couldn't deny.

He wanted to be there too. Maybe even getting hugs. But it was no place for a demon.

-

"Look at them. Just sleeping." The wind was whipping around Luci, but he was safely nested in the griffin's thick mane of hair. Bean and Elfo were curled up side by side on the griffin's back and the sight was both good and bad. "They're so peaceful. They've got no idea what's going to happen."

"You don't have any idea what's going to happen either." Sorcerio snapped from his perch in the griffin's arms, reminding Luci belatedly that he was there. "We can't know the future, that would be maddening!"

And it was. Even not knowing much of the future, or not remembering what he knew, it was still maddening.

"What do you know about destiny, you pervy old goat?" Luci muttered, bitter and not quite quiet enough to avoid being heard.

Despite Luci's obvious ire, the wizard answered anyway. "It can't be changed, of course. You may know everything else, but not the fate you belong to!"

"And what if you did know, wise guy?" Luci snapped back. "What then? You could change it if you knew." Luci vibrated where he sat, claws clenching in the griffin's hair. It wasn't a question, but he needed the answer to be yes.

"Alas no." Sorcerio had that full of himself, know it all tone as he dashed Luci's feeble hopes. "The future is what it is. Trying to change it does nothing. Just enjoy what you've got while you can. I know I do." He let out a sickening little giggle as he ran a hand along the griffin's chest in a disturbing way.

Luci ignored the way Sorcerio was now preoccupied with snuggling up against the griffin's front and turned to look back at Bean and Elfo, still sleeping between the creature's spread wings.

He almost joined them.

-

"Why do I keep coming here?" Luci sat heavily on the steps. "I could be anywhere. I could even be any WHEN because what the fuck Bean with your time not existing bullshit?!" He turned his head slightly and Elfo was still there. Still dead.

Someone else might have said that Elfo looked peaceful, just lying there. Luci would have disagreed. Elfo didn't look peaceful. He just looked dead. Death wasn't peaceful... it was his friend cradled in Bean's arms, bleeding out from a fucking arrow in his back.

Death was him, here. With all the words he needed to say and no more time left to say them with.

He kept expecting to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Any moment now, somewhere else. Fighting or drinking or bickering or some stupid ass daisy chain making...

/Please, anywhere else./

But no, he was here and it was now and there was nowhere left to go or to hide. Nothing.

There were footsteps behind him and he kept his head ducked as they drew closer. Not the priestess... he could hear that much in the confident gait of those boots. He closed his eyes before the words came.

"Here you are." Dagmar's voice was strange to him, somehow discordant despite being so smooth and airy. "Bean is looking for you."

"She is not." He said dully, wondering why she was playing this game.

"I know all about you, you know." She said, ignoring his words. "My dear Bean kept nothing from me." Luci's ears went back and he shifted closer to Elfo, pressed against the elf's cool side as Dagmar spoke. "I'm not sure if I'd tolerate a demon, myself." He wasn't sure if it was a warning or not, assumed that it was. "But I suppose I owe you something for your part in bringing me back."

Luci opened his eyes slowly, looked up with a flash of his old fire. "I don't need anything from you."

"Oh, but you really do." Dagmar laughed and Luci was seized with the bizarre urge to claw her face off. He didn't even know why she rubbed him the wrong way. "You need an answer, don't you? Why do you keep coming here?" At his look of surprise, she merely smiled, unimpressed by that, or by his following anger. "I didn't read your mind, demon. But I think anyone could have heard your voice from just outside the chapel doors."

She bent down toward him just a little, a gesture that felt more like her looming over him than her trying to be at his level.

"It's obvious, isn't it? You need to let go." She said, plain and blunt. "It's the past. This-" she gave a wide gesture at the chapel, at Elfo's body. "It's all the past. And the past has to die before the future can take its place."

Luci stared at her, mouth open for a few seconds before the anger and the disbelief and whatever other emotions he didn't want to think about came crashing down on him all at once. "What the fuck?!" He was ready to rant, to rage and to deny, but Dagmar wouldn't even give him that.

"You're welcome." She said, smug and precise. "Now, be sure you show up around the castle. We wouldn't want Bean to think something is amiss with you, would we?" She was up and moving in a swirl of skirts that confounded Luci long enough that he couldn't protest her exit.

As the echos of her boots began to fade, Luci looked again at the elf. One hand reached out, despite himself, brushing along the velvety curve of Elfo's cheek. Under the blood and the nauseating smell of death, there was still the faint lingering scent of some kind of sweet candy.

"I don't belong here." Luci said at last. He'd already known it, no matter how much his mind had tried to fight against the inevitable. "I've been here too long. I keep coming back and it's because you're here.

"But you're not here, either.  Not really. I've been coming here for nothing."

He couldn't change fate. He'd tried. It couldn't be denied or tricked, couldn't be bargained with. It just was. That left him with no way to fight and nothing to do but to give in and let it happen.

The knot inside his belly had pulled tighter and tighter and now it was too much. It finally burst and he was thankful for the dark to hide the steam on his cheeks. Despite all the yelling earlier, acceptance was thankfully, brutally silent.

He sat there for a while, empty. Hollowed out. The regrets were still there - and worse, he knew what they were now - but they were muted. Acknowledgement had robbed them of much of their strength.

He didn't really feel okay. But it felt like maybe being okay was possible sooner or later.

Luci eased to his feet, hand reaching down to brush his fingers across the back of Elfo's hand. "I'm gonna miss you buddy..." And there were still more words, but it wasn't worth quantifying things now. Someday, he thought. Someday. Yeah.

His ears were still drooping as he made his slow way to the door, but his tail no longer brushed the ground. As he reached the doorway, he almost looked back.

Almost.

-

"Luci?" A small green hand reached out, ruffling at his ears to get his attention. He let out a purring grumble in response.

"You and all your touching," he complained, but there was no bite to it and Elfo just smiled.

"You were far away for a moment there..." Elfo's voice was soft, pitched quiet so as not to disturb Bean. Luci could see the curve of her body from here, her arm half coiled around Elfo's small frame, cuddling him against her chest like he was a teddy bear and she was a small child who needed protection.

"Yeah." Luci said, equally soft. The empty feeling was different now. Tentative. More like waiting for something to fill it up than the desolation that lingered in his memory. "Yeah. It took me a while to get here." He leaned into Elfo's touch, demanding more attention to his ears. Elfo gave it willingly until his motions caused Bean to stir slightly. Luci grumbled as Elfo stopped petting him.

"Later." The elf admonished softly. "Bean needs rest." There was something both mournful and tender in his gaze as he looked at the sleeping princess. Luci might have been jealous, once. Now he felt only a vague sort of sympathy. "She's been through a lot."

Luci caught the slight wince as Elfo moved and he scowled. "She's not the only one." The elf made a faint noise of protest as Luci shoved the sagging fabric of his shirt upward to peer underneath. The skin just beneath his shoulder blades, along the curve of his spine, was still mottled and rough. "Still hurts, huh?" For just a moment he couldn't help the urge to touch the spot. The arrowhead was still there. It required more magic or more medical knowledge than any of them had to remove it now.

"I'll be okay." Elfo said, wiggling away from his touch, ducking against Bean for a moment. "We'll all be okay."

Perhaps he sensed Luci's skepticism because he turned, face to face. And damn it, he didn't look like he was lying. "We're hurt and it's painful," he said, soft and earnest, "but we're together." And he didn't have to say it, but they both knew that it hadn't been so long ago that even this, the three of them together again, had seemed impossible. "And if we're together... we'll be okay."

Luci wished he could believe it as easily and ardently as Elfo did. "You and your stupid hope." And Elfo just smiled at him because they both knew it was the best weapon he had.

The demon was silent for several long moments, long enough that he was sure Elfo had drifted off again. His body felt heavy. So did his mind. There was still far too much there to sleep. He was half afraid of waking up somewhere else again. Alone.

"Elfo." He said, testing. After a second Elfo stirred, bleary and sleepy.

"Yeah?"

Luci swallowed. He let his hand brush against Elfo's fingers where they sat on the pillow. The memory of that crushing feeling back in the chapel was so strong he could have just been there a moment ago. Maybe he had been. He didn't want to go back.

Elfo's sleepy expression had turned to concern and confusion. "Luci-?"

"Hey, shut up." Luci said, choking back something that was either a laugh or a sob. "Just shut up for once, okay." There was no heat to his words. "I uh..." He had to say it now. Just in case.

No one could know the future.

"I have something I need to tell you..."

  
-

 _Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell._  
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

 

  
-End-


End file.
